CARLSBAD UNIFIED CONNECTIONS
September 30, 2022
Bilingual Community Liaisons
Americans are at ease with many elements of our school system that can seem baffling for parents new to this country. What is Pajama Day? How about chromebooks, advisories, ebikes, and dress codes? And then there’s our school alphabet soup: IEP, SEL, STEAM, ELPAC, and PSAT. Even harder to understand are graduation requirements, truancy policies, and special programs. And one of the biggest challenges for parents is understanding and navigating cultural differences in our educational system.
Parents want their children to find happiness and success. So, when they drop off their children at school, they have to trust that the children will be safe and well cared for. But it can be particularly challenging for non-English speaking parents – many of whom have made great sacrifices to come to this country for the benefit of their children – to feel comfortable at their children’s school.
To assist these newcomer families, Carlsbad Unified has recently hired five bilingual Community Liaisons to employ their experience and bilingual abilities to bridge the cultural gap. The goal of our Community Liaisons is to develop home/school partnerships with newcomer parents so that their children will have every opportunity to succeed in school.
The Liaisons will seek to build trust and credibility with non-English speaking parents, answering their questions, helping them feel part of the school, and acting as advocates for them in a complex new world. That includes not only teaching parents the “how to’s” of school success from registration to graduation, but also proactively promoting family involvement in school and community activities. The Liaisons will attend meetings and activities so that they can convey important information to parents or refer them to helpful community resources. The Liaisons also will assist with translation, participate in IEPs, and help out with enrollment and testing.
And these new Liaisons have gotten right to work. One of them, Dario Labrada, noticed that some parents struggle with using online tools to follow their children’s progress in school. So he offered a workshop in Spanish to teach parents how to use the basic functions of ParentSquare, and will soon teach them how to use the Aeries Parent Portal to check on their students’ grades, assignments, and attendance.
Another Liaison, Leticia Torres, saw that some families lacked basic needs such as food, clothing, counseling, and other services. To address this, she updated a community resources list that all of the Liaisons can use to offer parents this valuable information when needed.
Liaison Julieta Thomas created a website, in Spanish, with important links to topics such as scholarships, safety workshops, parental rights, and mental health services. She also works closely with the attendance office to communicate with parents regarding their students’ attendance, and uses ParentSquare to send out “smart alerts” in Spanish to parents on a variety of topics. For instance, Calavera Hills is offering Padres de Familias, an eight-week Parent Education workshop in Spanish, to all parents in the district. Topics include Preventing Bullying and Violence, Social Media Dangers, and Mental Health. Ms. Thomas and the other Community Liaisons – including Janette Torres and Nora Bastien – have contributed to the success of the program by getting the word out and encouraging parents to attend.
The bilingual Community Liaison program at Carlsbad Unified has gotten off to an impressive start. “Teachers are already telling me that more newcomer parents have contacted them to check in on their children’s progress,” reports Mr. Labrada. “This is what we want to hear.”
“Parents want to know when their child has missed that first homework assignment, rather than finding out only later that the student has been struggling,” said Ms. Thomas. “I make it a priority to work one-on-one to teach parents, if they are not yet equipped with technical knowledge, about alternative ways of communicating with the school and navigating through the educational system. Our mission is to give parents the tools and confidence they need to work with the school to make sure their students are on track to meet their goals. Working together, we can do this.”
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Carlsbad Unified School District
Email: cusd@carlsbadusd.net
Website: https://www.carlsbadusd.k12.ca.us
Location: 6225 El Camino Real, Carlsbad, CA, USA
Phone: 760-331-5000
Facebook: facebook.com/CarlsbadUnifiedSchools
Twitter: @CarlsbadUSD